Mitch’s goof off space

I was a flat 155lbs before I got my last cold, now I can’t seem to climb out of the 152 range.  Very frustrating.

Yesterday was a leg day and something pretty funny/strange happened.  I know it’s been about 2 weeks since my last legs workout, so I was taking things lightly.  After doing free standing squats with some small weight, I went to do some hamstring stuff, and noticed over the next few minutes that my quads were siezing up if I bent them - as long as I stood up it was okay, but if I squatted down or sat with my legs draped over something they’d just contract and cramp really bad.  I thought it was funny given that I didn’t think I did anything that severe.  After 15 minutes or so it went away and I could bend my legs again without fear that I was going to fall down.

I am still fighting off this cold.  It’s dying, it’s almost dead but it’s still hanging out in my cough and nose.  Worse than that, I went swimming in a pool Friday and ever since my right ear has been plugged up.  I don’t think it’s infected but I think I may have impacted some soft wax against my ear drum with a Q-tip.  It is very annoying and I’m going to see an ENT doc tomorrow.

I am moving out into a new place soon, and would like to seriously try putting on some good weight this time.  I was thinking of trying out a post-workout recovery supplement like Cellmass or similar.

I’ve managed to get sick again, just a minor little throat irritation but probably something that will stick around for 3 or 4 days.  And I know how I got it…

Life’s events have got me down, and I admit to being in a little depression.  Depression, among other things disrupts sleep and surpresses appetite, both big contributors to lowering your immune system’s strength.  There’s germs on everything, and there is a threshold of how many you can take in before you get sick.  The more quality rest and good diet you have, the higher that threshold is.

So there it is - a happy outlook and a positive mindset can help keep you from getting sick.

Thinking about the phrase ‘train until failure’, there are a few ways to interpret that.  In my mind, there’s three kinds of ‘training until failure’:

1: On your last rep, you feel like you can’t do anymore

2: You attempt another rep, barely finishing or stalling

3: Someone tells you to do another rep even though you swear you couldn’t do another

Method three harnesses your best results (as long as you’re not inviting injury or overtraining) and is the hardest to reach in my opinion.  That’s part of why I think leg day is hard; in the third method you have a fear of not being able to finish, which is different for different exercises.  For instance, when curling a cambered bar while standing, even if you can’t finish you can just lower the bar while still holding it.  With leg exercises, if you fail on a rep you risk falling down or otherwise losing balance.  I think this makes exhausting your leg muscles quite a bit harder.